A Terrifying Glimpse at What Donald Trump’s Mount Rushmore Would Look Like

In 2007, V.F. asked famed illustrator Dan Adel to take his chisel to Mount Rushmore, re-carving it with the faces of the most disastrous American presidents. This month Adel revisits his “Sketchbook” to make room for a new G.O.P candidate. “This is an update in some Trumpian dystopia in which his first executive action would be to replace one of the Rushmore founding fathers,” says Adel. “A fairly plausible scenario, I think.”

A self-described “old-fashioned oil-on-canvas kind of guy,” Adel drew inspiration from “watching one too many YouTube clips of speeches and interviews” to master the characteristic expressions of Richard Nixon, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump, reaching as far back as newsreels of Herbert Hoover. “I suspect if he hadn’t presided over the Great Depression, I wouldn’t be getting so many e-mails asking who he is,” says Adel.

Is there anyone missing who should be up there instead? “I think if Trump were asked which four presidents should be up there among the greatest, he’d say, ‘Trump, Trump, Trump, and also Trump.’”

In Iowa last January, Trump regales voters with a humanizing personal anecdote about how he once bit his right index finger after mistaking it for a half-eaten French fry.

Photo: By Jerry Mennenga/ZUMA Press/Corbis.

A wax figure of “Duke” Wayne looks on in disgust as Trump strains to reach his fingers all the way around daughter Aissa Wayne’s frankly rather petite shoulder. (Fun fact: you could load the barrel of Wayne’s pistol with 14 of Trump’s pinkies.)

Photo: By Tannen Maury/EPA/Corbis.

As Trump talks straight through a lunch-hour town hall in February, hungry New Hampshire voters appear mesmerized by the five chicken-tender-like appendages radiating from his sausage-patty-size palm.

Photo: From The Washington Post/Getty Images.

At this 2005 gala, Trump, thinking quickly, uses both hands to keep wife Melania from getting a good look at the size of a single Puff Daddy hand.

Photo: By Johnny Nunez/WireImage/Getty Images.

Trump’s delicate right hand is nearly crushed by his nine-year-old daughter Ivanka’s huge, burly mitt at a 1991 event.

In Iowa last January, Trump regales voters with a humanizing personal anecdote about how he once bit his right index finger after mistaking it for a half-eaten French fry.

By Jerry Mennenga/ZUMA Press/Corbis.

A wax figure of “Duke” Wayne looks on in disgust as Trump strains to reach his fingers all the way around daughter Aissa Wayne’s frankly rather petite shoulder. (Fun fact: you could load the barrel of Wayne’s pistol with 14 of Trump’s pinkies.)

By Tannen Maury/EPA/Corbis.

As Trump talks straight through a lunch-hour town hall in February, hungry New Hampshire voters appear mesmerized by the five chicken-tender-like appendages radiating from his sausage-patty-size palm.

From The Washington Post/Getty Images.

Greeting voters in Iowa City, Trump surreptitiously compares his hand to a baby’s, a smile of satisfaction and relief slowly spreading across his face.

From Bloomberg/Getty Images.

At the 1990 grand opening of the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, wee hands try to summon a genie from a giant lamp. “It’s the motion,” Trump gamely jokes.

An interesting optical illusion: Trump’s left hand is actually in the foreground of the picture!

By Chris Cassidy/Getty Images.

More ugly politics in South Carolina: Trump is forced to refute rumors, traced back to the Cruz campaign, that his fingers aren’t long enough for Christian prayer.

By Andrew Cowan/Scottish Parliament/Getty Images.

Trump pretends to enjoy a pork chop on a stick at the 2015 Iowa State Fair, probably the one place on Earth where people won’t mistake a pork chop on a stick for Trump’s third hand.

By Win McNamee/Getty Images.

In costume with actress Megan Mullally at the 2005 Emmys, Trump wows an audience of hardened entertainment professionals by wrapping his fingers nearly all the way around a pitchfork.

By Mathew Imaging/FilmMagic/Getty Images.

Some pundits have attributed candidate Trump’s hawkishness to the fact that, even though his fingers have as many joints as a normal man’s, they remain at least an inch short of being able to form a proper peace sign.

From The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images.

Nothing much to say about the fingers in this picture; just curious why Trump’s “anus mouth” face hasn’t also become a thing.

From CNBC/Getty Images.

To this day, clubhouse attendants maintain that Trump had to be outfitted with a Babe Ruth Jr. Youth League glove for this 1991 appearance at Yankee Stadium.

From the Donaldson Collection/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images.

At this 2005 gala, Trump, thinking quickly, uses both hands to keep wife Melania from getting a good look at the size of a single Puff Daddy hand.

By Johnny Nunez/WireImage/Getty Images.

Trump’s delicate right hand is nearly crushed by his nine-year-old daughter Ivanka’s huge, burly mitt at a 1991 event.